Best American Series

This is a series of collections of magazine stories and articles that usually comes out each year. The editors are all really good writers, like Geraldine Brooks, Dave Eggers, Edwidge Danticat, and Mary Roach. Catch up on your reading! Our county libraries have several years’ worth of these books.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading
Selected by high school students. Includes entries like “Boomtown Iraq,” by Denis Johnson, “Best American Craigslist Items and Offers to Barter,” and “A Hole in the Head,” by Joyce Carol Oates.

The Best American Short Stories
Fruit for Young Widows,” by Nathan Englander, “Foster,” by Claire Keegan, and “Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart,” by Rebecca Makkai.

The Best American Mystery Stories
Look for stories like “Sometimes a Hyena,” by Loren D. Estleman, “Flying Solo,” by Ed Gorman, and “Chin Yong-Yun Takes a Case,” by S.J. Rozan.

The Best American Essays
Try “Generation Why?” by Zadie Smith (why not?), “Topic of Cancer,” by Christopher Hitchens, and “Magical Dinners,” by Chang-Rae Lee.

The Best American Travel Writing
How can you resist articles like “Volcano Alley Is Ticking,” by Tim Cahill, “The Place to Disappear,” by Susan Orlean, and “The Post-Communist Wolf,” by David Quammen?

The Best American Science and Nature Writing
Did you catch “The Sixth Extinction?” by Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Lazarus Effect,” by Jane Goodall, and “The Monkey and the Fish,” by Philip Gourevitch when they first came out?

The Best American Sports Writing Here is some of the sports writing you can find in these volumes: “Field of Broken Dreams,” by Andrew Miller, “The Eli Experiment,” by Michael Lewis, and” Seeing Snook,” by Thomas McGuane.

The Best American Spiritual Writing
This title ended in 2008, for some reason, but you can still read: The Best American Spritual Writing (find our catalog listings here and here). You’ll find pieces like “A Chapel Is Where You Can Feel Something Beating Below Your Heart,” “Where the Buddha Woke Up,” and “Why Are the Jews Chosen?”